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Last week, Manssor Arbabsiar pleaded guilty to plotting what U.S. officials have termed "a significant attack in the United States." Attorney General Eric Holder called the Iranian-born American's admission "a reminder of the exceptional efforts of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies in protecting America against terrorist attacks." Yes, that's quite right. Holder added that this outcome demonstrates that the U.S. will hold "accountable those who plan such actions." No, that's patently false.

Arbabsiar has admitted that he was working at the direction of the Quds Force  the most elite branch of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC reports directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Is there anyone who seriously believes that Khamenei, the IRGC, or the Quds Force will be held accountable? Is there anyone who seriously believes the U.S. government will even try?

Fecklessness in response to attacks on Americans is a bipartisan tradition going back well over a quarter century. For example, in 1973, the Palestine Liberation Organization's Black September faction assassinated the U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel, as well as Deputy Chief of Mission George Curtis Moore. As my colleague Lee Smith writes:

The State Department knew from the very outset of the attack that Yasser Arafat was personally directing the operation, but neither Nixon nor any other American president ever punished the PLO chairman, who lived to become a favored guest in the Clinton White House.

Ten years later, after the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed, killing 241 Marines, President Reagan vowed: "Those who directed this atrocity must be dealt justice, and they will be." But justice was never dealt to Hezbollah  now the best-armed, deadliest, and most powerful faction in Lebanon  or to Iran's rulers, on whose instructions Hezbollah carried out the slaughter.

In 1996, Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. But his terrorist organization, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, was in no way held accountable, and in 1997 it was responsible for the massacre of 58 foreign tourists in Luxor. Last year, after the fall of the Mubarak government, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya established an Egyptian political party, and its current leader, Sheikh Rifa'ah Taha, was among those who organized the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo on the 9/11 anniversary  an attack that included the raising of an al-Qaeda flag above the compound.

Also in 1996, 19 American servicemen were killed at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. According to Louis Freeh, who was FBI director at the time, President Clinton took no actions  not against those responsible, and not against those who sent them. Clinton refused even to ask the Saudis to allow FBI agents to question suspects they were holding. (Freeh noted, however, that Clinton did ask Crown Prince Abdullah for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.)

Immediately following the attacks of 9/11, President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. would no longer distinguish between terrorists and terrorist masters. He told a joint session of Congress: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." But Bush never fully implemented that policy, and President Obama rejected it outright.

The killing of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens along with three other Americans evoked this pledge from Vice President Joe Biden: "We will find and bring to justice the men who did this." By now it should be clear that we are menaced not just by "the men" who carry out such attacks  but by the organizations, regimes, and ideologies behind them.

The plot for which Manssor Arbabsiar will go to jail was not authorized by some rogue faction beyond the control of Iran's rulers. Rather, those rulers should be held responsible for their plan to explode a bomb in a restaurant in the capital city of the United States in order to assassinate the Saudi ambassador along with everyone else in the immediate vicinity. Once upon a time this would have been called what it is: an act of war.

Also last week, the U.S. Treasury Department attempted to call attention to the fact that Iran continues to give safe haven to senior al-Qaeda operatives  operatives who maintain a "core pipeline" that moves "funding and fighters" to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere.

"We will continue targeting this crucial source of al-Qaeda's funding and support, as well as highlight Iran's ongoing complicity in this network's operation," said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. Three times in less than two years the Treasury has designated al-Qaeda operatives in Iran, according to Thomas Joscelyn, a colleague at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who keeps careful track of such things.

So here are a few conclusions that should, by now, be apparent: (1) Iran's rulers collaborate with al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization with which the Obama administration says we are at war. (2) Iran's rulers, the world's leading sponsors of terrorism, do not hesitate to plot terrorism on American soil  confident they will pay no price. (3) Iran's rulers are pursuing nuclear-weapons capability and, if they achieve that goal, they will become much bolder and more dangerous.

It's time we grasped this, too: Swatting mosquitoes and shooting the occasional crocodile takes you only so far. At some point it becomes necessary to devise a strategy to drain the swamp.

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Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism. A veteran news reporter, foreign correspondent and editor (at The New York Times and other publications), he has covered stories in more than two dozen countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, China, Uzbekistan, Northern Ireland and Russia. He is a frequent guest on national and international television and radio news programs, providing analysis and participating in debates on national security issues.

Previously:

•09/27/12: Letter from Ireland: A 'peace of sorts,' but no model for the Middle East
•08/17/12: What did Obama promise the Kremlin, and why isn't it a topic in the campaign debate?
•08/02/12: After the Fall
•07/19/12: Why are we still tolerating terrorists?
•07/12/12: Talk to Iran: But this time talk to the people --- not their oppressors
•07/05/12: New York Times v. Adelson
•06/28/12: Lose LOST
•06/21/12: The Trouble with Multiculturalism
•06/07/12: The Battle of Syria
•05/31/12: Whose Middle East Policy Is It, Anyway?
•05/24/12: What Iran's Rulers Want
•05/17/12: Missile Defense Is for Wimps
•05/10/12: The Real Palestinian Refugee Problem
•05/03/12: The Foggiest War
•04/19/12: Law Games
•04/19/12: Liberate 'Zones of Electronic Repression'!
•04/12/12: Dare we actually listen to the Islamists?
•04/05/12: Lone-wolf terrorists are a growing threat. Moderate Muslims are among those in the crosshairs
•03/29/12: The Diplomats' Dilemma
•03/22/12: 'Destroy All the Churches'
•03/15/12: A Guide for the Perplexed Fareed Zakaria
•03/08/12: How to Stop Putting Gas in the Islamist Tank
•03/01/12: (War) Crimes and Punishment
•02/24/12: Al-Qaeda's Big Fat Iranian Wedding
•02/16/12: Listening to the Syrian Resistance
•02/09/12: Are Sanctions Working? If the purpose is to penalize Iran's rulers for their crimes and discourage civilized people from buying blood oil, yes
•01/26/12: If Pakistan fails it, there must be consequences
•01/19/12: How terrorists lose their stigma
•01/12/12: Muslims Attacked! But they are the wrong types of Muslims, so who cares?
•01/06/12: The Historian, the Diplomat, and the Spy
•12/29/11: Iran and Al-Qaeda: Together again for the first time
•12/22/11: The Case for Palestinian Nationalism
•12/15/11: What's Islam Got to Do with It?
•12/09/11: Buried Treasure
•11/24/11: What Would the Gipper Do?
•11/17/11: Appease, temporize, posture and gesture?
•11/11/11: Brave New Transnational Progressive World
•11/03/11: What's Wrong with Economic Justice?
•10/27/11: Autocracies United
•10/20/11: The most critical threat confronting America
•10/13/11: We've Been Warned
•10/06/11: Anwar Al-Awlaki's American Journey
•09/22/11: Cheney Got It Right on Syrian Nukes
•09/15/11: The European Caliphate
•09/08/11: Disoriented: The state of too many Western leaders ten years after 9/11/01
•09/01/11: Palestinian Leaders to Seek the UN's Blessing . . .
for a two-state solution. For a two-stage execution
•08/25/11: Better understanding of Islamist experience needed
•08/18/11: The Arab Spring and Europe's fall
•08/11/11: Borrowing from Communists to pay Jihadis?
•07/28/11: Who's to Blame for Terrorism?
•07/28/11: Do Somali pirates have legitimate gripe?
•07/21/11: Why Bashar al-Assad matters to the West--- and what the Obama administration still doesn't grasp
•07/07/11: MAD in the 21st Century